Contrasting Godin’s esoteric guitar designs, their sub-brand Art & Lutherie focuses on classic guitar designs. To be specific, this sub-brand offers guitars with traditional looks and specs, while still benefiting from Godin’s modern building and production experience. Thankfully, within this line is a parlor guitar model called Roadhouse, that combines the old school vibe of parlor guitars with modern reliability, playability and built-in electronics.
Just by looking at the images, you can tell that this instrument is vintage inspired. And with its golden era style small body shape, and elegant finish options, you know that the company has taken the old beaten path to ensure that this new parlor guitar feels genuinely old.
It starts off with a solid spruce top following traditional acoustic guitar designs, only the wood on this one were pressure tested and selected following Godin’s quality standards. Speaking of Godin, the back and sides are crafted from Canada grown Wild Cherry wood, built using 3-layer solid lamination. These wood combination form the instrument’s compact parlor guitar shape body, results in a resonant voicing with the expected mid-emphasis of a small bodied instrument. Instead of merely talking about the Roadhouse Parlor’s tone, check out the video below and hear for yourself:
Art & Lutherie opted for silver leaf maple for the neck, and topped it with rosewood for the fingerboard. It has a shorter than average scale length of 24.84″ that is divided into 21 frets. The neck joins the body at the 12th fret follow traditional designs, while the square tapered headstock features 18:1 ratio antique brass tuning machines. Unfortunately, details about its nut width and is not provided, but at least the fingerboard radius is listed, although it is surprisingly very flat at 16″, especially for an old school looking instrument. This combination of short scale and flat fingerboard would make this guitar very comfortable to play, barring any issues with its string height.
While the affordable price tag may make it seem like a simple couch guitar, the build in Fishman Sonitone pickup transforms it into a stage ready instrument when you need it to. Thankfully, the preamp controls are discretely positioned, allowing you to adjust the amplified sound’s tone and volume right at the soundhole, minimizing distracting modifications to the body.
Other features include rosewood bridge, Graphtech Tusq nut and saddle, dot inlays, and a dual action truss rod embedded. Every Art & Lutherie Roadhouse Parlor guitar is handcrafted in Quebec, Canada, with 95% of its wood sourced within the same country as it is built.
Considering its specs and its country of origin, this parlor guitar has a very affordable price tag, currently retailing online for under $500. Available finish options include Tennessee Red, Faded Black and Bourbon Burst. For more information, you can head over to Art And Lutherie.
